Bangladesh vulnerable after double-whammy

Match Facts

Friday, December 3
Start time 09:00 (03:00 GMT)

The Big Picture

Bangladesh will be under intense pressure to recover from Wednesday's double-whammy - a surprise loss to Zimbabwe followed by their captain Shakib Al Hasan's outburst that he was not satisfied with his role as captain nor with the team he has been given. A single loss should not really take all the wind out of Bangladesh's sails, as the memory of their 4-0 drubbing of New Zealand in October is still fresh, but a wavering captain makes them especially vulnerable.

Zimbabwe have the opportunity to prove they could be a threat to the other sides in their group during the World Cup next year. They are notorious giant-killers in World Cups, and the spin duo of Ray Price and Prosper Utseya will relish the conditions in the subcontinent, as they showed in the first ODI.

Both sides will hope to better their batting performances from the first match. Even during Bangladesh's series win over New Zealand, they never once crossed 250 and had to rely on their left-arm spinners to deliver victories. Zimbabwe captain Elton Chigumbura will have to start with himself if he wants his batsmen to improve, having only scored one half-century this year.

Form Guide

(most recent first) Bangladesh: LWWWW

Zimbabwe: WLLLLL

Watch out for …

Tatenda Taibu has averaged 37.38 in ODIs over the last 12 months and with Chigumbura struggling for runs and the inexperienced Regis Chakabva and Craig Ervine making up the rest of Zimbabwe's middle-order, the onus will be on Taibu to score runs in the middle overs. Taibu has had plenty of experience playing on subcontinent tracks and will need to take the lead in showing the rest of the batsmen how to deal with Bangladesh's spinners.

Bangladesh let Zimbabwe get away to a quick start in the first ODI before the spinners pulled the game back. They will be looking to Mashrafe Mortaza to prevent that from happening on Friday. Mortaza's position in the side is an interesting one because he was originally named captain for the New Zealand series but injured himself in the first game. The selectors decided to stick with Shakib despite Mortaza's return and he will now have to prove that he can be a match-winner with the ball if he is to be handed back the captaincy.

Pitch Conditions

The teams will stay in Dhaka for the second and third ODIs so conditions can be expected to be the same as the first match. The trend at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium has been batsmen struggling with the slow and low conditions and the spinners able to maintain a lid on run-scoring. As the first ODI proved, a total of anything more than 200 will prove challenging for the side batting second as the wicket gets slower and offers some turn.

Teams

Shakib said Bangladesh missed the fielding skills of Naeem Islam and Raqibul Hassan, so they could come in to the side. Mohammad Ashraful's return to the team saw him make just seven runs, so there might be pressure to drop him again. Junaid Siddique will also be under pressure having failed to get past 20 in each of his last four innings.

Bangladesh (probable): 1 Tamim Iqbal, 2 Imrul Kayes, 3 Junaid Siddique/ Naeem Islam, 4 Raqibul Hasan / Mohammad Ashraful, 5 Shakib Al Hasan (capt), 6 Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), 7 Suhrawadi Shuvo, 8 Mahmudullah, 9 Mashrafe Mortaza, 10 Abdur Razzak, 11 Shafiul Islam

Hamilton Masakadza was dropped for the first ODI and with his replacement Chakabva top-scoring for Zimbabwe, could continue to be left out. Zimbabwe also have hard-hitting allrounder Ryan Butterworth in their squad.

Zimbabwe (probable): 1 Brendan Taylor, 2 Chamu Chibhabha, 3 Regis Chakabva, 4. Tatenda Taibu (wk), 5 Elton Chigumbura (capt), 6 Craig Ervine, 7 Keegan Meth, 8 Prosper Utseya, 9 Keith Dabengwa, 10 Raymond Price, 11 Chris Mpofu

Quotes

"I am not satisfied with my role as a captain. The reasons are numerous, and I cannot detail all of them right at the moment."
Shakib Al Hasan makes his displeasure with his position as leader known

"We need to do more as a team and our total today fell short of what we had wanted as a target."
Alan Butcher, the Zimbabwe coach, is not resting on his laurels and wants his batsmen to step up their game.